12 Questions with David Gilliland

Our series of weekly NASCAR driver interviews continues with David Gilliland, who is currently in his sixth season at Front Row Motorsports, where he drives the No. 38 Love's Travel Stop Ford.

Q: If NASCAR allowed you to listen to music while you were racing, would you want to?

A: No. The only time I can think of where you’d want to listen to music is like at a Talladega or something where you get stretched out in the middle of a run. Spotters aren’t saying anything, crew chiefs aren’t saying anything. You’re just kind of like, “Man, it’d be nice to listen to some music right now.”

Q: Where did your first paycheck come from?

A: My first paycheck came from my dad (former Winston West Series driver Butch Gilliland). He had an automotive repair shop. I was cleaning parts for him to rebuild engines. I was probably 12 or 13. He’d take me to work with him in the summers when I’d get off school, and I’d clean parts and get burnt with solvent – all that fun stuff.

Q: Who is an autograph you got as a kid that seemed to be a big deal to you at the time?

A: I never have really gotten autographs. But growing up, my dad raced in the Winston West series and they’d run two Cup races per year. I remember going in the track and seeing Dale Earnhardt. I never got his autograph, but obviously I wish I would have. That was probably the only time I felt like I wanted someone’s autograph, but I was too shy to get it.

A: Australia. My grandpa was in the military and so my grandparents lived there for a couple years. We were all supposed to go back there but we never made it. That’s definitely one place I’d like to go.

Q: Do people ever accuse you of being addicted to your phone?

A: Yeah. I think we could all be accused of that. I’m guilty of it myself, but there’s so much going on and you can access so much on your phone – emails, texts, just communicating. I always tell my kids (son Todd, who will make his K&N West debut this weekend, and daughter Taylor), “Put your phone down, put your phone down.” But then at dinner you’ll pull your phone out to look at a schedule for the next day and by the time you’re done looking, the two kids have their phones out and my wife (Michelle) has her phone out.

Q: If a genie promised you a championship in exchange for never being able to do your favorite hobby again, would you accept that offer?

A: Yeah, I probably would. When I got into the Cup Series, my goals and aspirations were to become a Cup champion one day and obviously we haven’t achieved that yet, so I’d definitely trade that out.

Q: What’s your preferred method of dealing with an angry driver after a race?

A: I’m not a real good communicator, so usually I hold it inside until I take care of it on the racetrack. It’d be easier to just go talk to them after the race and say, “Hey, what’s going on?” And I’ve done that before. But it seems like it just pisses you off more when they’re like, “What? I didn’t do it on purpose.” You’re a race car driver and so you know what’s going on in there. I’ve been mad and lost my temper and done things I regret. So usually talking after the race doesn’t accomplish anything. You’re mad, they’re mad and they’re probably not going to tell you the truth anyway. I don’t want to hear B.S.

A: Yeah. Travis Kvapil. We were teammates forever. There’s been plenty of times where people have been like, “Travis! Can I get your autograph?” And a couple times lately, it’s been “Trevor (Bayne).” So I guess I’ll take that as a compliment, being that Trevor is 15 or 16 years younger than me.

Q: If you had a time machine and you could travel to any year and race, where would you go?

A: Probably 2007. That was my rookie year in the Cup Series (when he was driving for Yates Racing). I feel like I made a lot of mistakes. If I could go back there now, I feel like I could take much better advantage of the opportunity I had at that time.

Is it just how much more experience you have now?

For sure. More experience and I’ve raced at the tracks more. In my first year in the Cup Series, there were a ton of tracks I was going to for the first time. Coming into the series, I’d won a lot of races in other stuff and had success early on in what was the Busch Series at the time. You feel like you can do anything. But the Cup Series is definitely challenging, and being a rookie was tough enough without not knowing a lot of the tracks.

Q: Would you rather have the ability to fly or be invisible?

A: Fly, definitely. With what we do and our schedule, it just seems like time is so valuable and we can’t get more of it. So if you could fly, you could just get so much more done in a day.

Q: I’ve been asking each person to give me a question for the next interview. The last interview was with Casey Mears, and he wanted to know: In a situation with limited funding like on your team, how do you balance and understand what more the car could do for you and what you need to do to get more out of the car?

A: That’s an everyday challenge, especially with where we’re at with a team right now. And Casey has been there. Their team (Germain Racing) has made great progress in the last three or four years, but when he first went there, he fought a lot of the same challenges we’re currently fighting. It’s probably one of the toughest challenges I’ve had in my career.

You go to a lot of the 1.5-mile tracks and it’s very aero-dependent and car-dependent and there’s downforce and all that stuff. But racing short tracks growing up, that was never really an issue. So there’s many days when you get done and you’re like, “Man, is it me? Is it the car? I don’t know. I feel like I’m doing all I can. Is that not enough?”

In this situation at Front Row Motorsports, I’ve just got to remind myself that we’re here to try and build this organization. Bob Jenkins, our car owner, is a great man. He has the same aspirations we do, which is to one day be able to win on Sundays and compete for wins on a weekly basis. We all know as a team we’re not there yet, but we all know we want to get there.

So knowing that we’re working to get our cars better every week and that everyone wants to get them better, the biggest thing I do as a driver is to try and not make mistakes – speeding on pit road, pit road penalties, trying not to lose spots on restarts, trying to give the best feedback we can throughout a run and communicate the best we can with (crew chief) Donnie Wingo. But it’s a very real challenge, a very real struggle at times.

Q: And do you have a question I can ask the next driver? It’s Landon Cassill.

A: How old were you when you started racing and what made you want to race?

Race 10 at Homestead-Miami Speedway: Kyle Busch, right, races side-by-side with Kevin Harvick at the front of the pack. Busch won the race and the season championship, while Harvick finished second in both.
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Race 9 at Phoenix International Raceway: Martin Truex Jr. (78), who finished 14th, and Kyle Busch (18), who finished fourth, will each compete for their first Sprint Cup Series title after advancing to the championship finale.
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Race 8 at Texas Motor Speedway: Jimmie Johnson celebrates winning the AAA Texas 500 on Nov. 8. Johnson passed a dominant Brad Keselowski with four laps remaining to win his third consecutive race at Fort Worth and his fifth in the last seven races at the 1.5-mile track.
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Race 8 at Texas Motor Speedway: Crew members work on the left rear tire of Joey Logano's No. 22 Ford. Logano blew the tire on the 10th lap of the race and had to go to the garage for extensive repairs. He finished 40th to put himself in a must-win situation at the next Chase race at Phoenix International Raceway.
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Race 7 at Martinsville Speedway: Matt Kenseth (20) plows into Joey Logano (22) on lap 454 of 500. Kenseth was already laps down after contact with Logano's teammate Brad Keselowski, but Logano was leading the race and in position for his fourth consecutive win. In the second round of the Chase, Logano bumped Kenseth out of the way while he was leading to win at Kansas Speedway.
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Race 7 at Martinsville Speedway: Jeff Gordon celebrates winning the Goody's Headache Relief Shot 500 at Martinsville Speedway on Nov. 1. It was Gordon's first victory of the season, his ninth at Martinsville and the 93rd of his Sprint Cup Series career.
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Race 6 at Talladega Superspeedway: Joey Logano leads Dale Earnhardt Jr. during the CampingWorld.com 500. Logano won -- his third straight victory. Earnhardt was eliminated from the Chase after finishing second.
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Race 5 at Kansas Speedway: Dale Earnhardt Jr. was forced to pit under a green for a loose wheel during, which ultimately left him two laps down and facing a must-win situation at Talladega.
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Race 4 at Charlotte Motor Speedway: Smoke billows from Matt Kenseth's car (20) after one of his crashes in the Bank of America 500. Kenseth finished 42nd, putting him in a huge hole in the Chase standings.
David Graham, AP

Race 3 at Dover International Speedway: Faced with a must-win scenario, Kevin Harvick dominated the AAA 400 at Dover International Speedway on Oct. 4 to advance to the second round of the Chase.
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Race 3 at Dover International Speedway: Jimmie Johnson, who has 10 career wins at Dover, was a victim of a broken right rear axle seal that sent him to the garage for lengthy repairs and, by race's end, eliminated him from the Chase.
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Race 3 at Dover International Speedway: Jamie McMurray, left, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. battle in the closing stages of the Oct. 4 race. Earnhardt finished third to McMurray's fourth and advanced to the second round over McMurray on a tiebreaker.
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Race 2 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway: Matt Kenseth, with his wife and daughters in victory lane, won the Sylvania 300 on Sept. 27 after race leader Kevin Harvick ran out of gas with three laps remaining.
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Race 2 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway: Brad Keselowski was penalized for jumping a restart on lap 242 and was forced to come down pit road for a drive-thru penalty, which dropped him from second to 25th. He rallied to finish 12th.
Jim Cole, AP

Race 1 at Chicagoland Speedway: Denny Hamlin celebrates after winning the MyAFibRisk.com 400 at Chicagoland Speedway on Sept. 20. Hamlin, driving with a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee, overcame a spin early in the race that left him one lap down to clinch a berth in the second round.
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Race 1 at Chicagoland Speedway: Kevin Harvick (4) spins after contact with Jimmie Johnson (48) a few laps earlier cut his tire, forcing him to the garage for repairs. Harvick finished 42nd and punched Johnson in the chest after the race when Johnson tried to apologize.
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Race 1 at Chicagoland Speedway: Carl Edwards, above, was tagged for speeding on the first green-flag pit stop, which left him one lap down. He later rallied to finish second.
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